- I am pretty sure NO ONE asked to hear about more topics and organizations across whatsapp.
Anyone new who wants to message me, I simply say "I'm on Signal" and if it's important enough, they go and install it; it's been fairly frictionless, after all how hard is it to download an app and go through the fairly minimal registration process; and for someone already using WhatsApp, "one more account" probably isn't a major concern.
I tried various steps in the past to retain access to WhatsApp for a couple of people who didn't move, by having a work account on my phone, with a second SIM, but a one-click mistake one time gave WhatsApp my entire contact list from the "Personal" sandbox account, and I've decided not to even bother again.
And I don't want to go to signal because it's only marginally better. It's still American and still a walled garden (no third party apps allowed, no federation). It's a slightly less smelly walled garden.
> And I don't want to go to signal because it's only marginally better. It's still American and still a walled garden (no third party apps allowed, no federation). It's a slightly less smelly walled garden.
This, to me, is downright irrational. "Less smelly" is better, especially if it takes zero effort (you don't even need to create an account with a password, it just sends you an SMS).
If there was a non-American alternative to Signal, surely I would go for it. But there isn't. In the meantime, Signal is by far the best alternative to WhatsApp in terms of privacy.
Not to mention that there is actually a valid reason to not allow third party apps (spoiler: security). Last time I heard a fork of Signal making the news, it was pretty bad.
But it's exactly because I already have to deal with too many of them that I don't want to add more.
Also I don't like moxie's attitude but that's more of a personal concern that won't apply to most. Like not allowing third party clients or federation and shooting many suggestions down on github. It's his right to do that but it's also mine to not want to use it. For a "just a little bit better" experience I'm not moving to that.
I use matrix a lot and I think this is by far the best and most open option but most people don't know it. I bridge all the other apps through it now. Also, arathorn is a much nicer person who responds much better to criticism.
> If there was a non-American alternative to Signal, surely I would go for it. But there isn't. In the meantime, Signal is by far the best alternative to WhatsApp in terms of privacy.
But I wouldn't be able to actually move. It would just be yet another one. Not even much better in any way than whatsapp.
> Not to mention that there is actually a valid reason to not allow third party apps (spoiler: security). Last time I heard a fork of Signal making the news, it was pretty bad.
I don't care so much about that (and I work in cybersec). What matters more to me is being in control of my data. Being able to export them wherever I want etc.
I had an issue recently with whatsapp where they locked my account because of "spam". I wasn't spamming but they probably thought my matrix bridge was suspicious. However because of that bridge I could still access my chat data. I couldn't in whatsapp itself. Signal could do the same to me. So I would only use it bridged to Matrix anyway, like I do whatsapp.
And in terms of security: I don't believe neither WhatsApp nor Signal is good enough to prevent a state actor from reading my messages. Even if they can't get in the app they can compromise an endpoint. And even a bad third-party app will be sufficient to prevent drive-by hackers with a pineapple from reading my messages. So I don't see much difference there.
> But I wouldn't be able to actually move. It would just be yet another one.
Just don't keep a backup WhatsApp account around, because then people will use it.
It's really not worth the hassle for me especially since signal is only marginally better.
I understand the latter, but for the former... it's probably faster to install Signal than to answer to a message on HN.
If everybody just installed Signal (because it's better, even if marginally), then eventually everybody would be on Signal and it would be easy to switch.
But the hassle is dealing with all these different apps and their separate notifications. I have real app fatigue lately and turn them off for mostly everything.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Signal fanatic. I'm just quick at moving to better alternatives. If a better alternative than Signal gets announced in 10min, I'll be on it in 11min and I'll be telling you to try it in 12min :-).
The fact is that Signal is probably the best messaging app we have right now. I get the app fatigue, I don't get why the result of it should be to fight precisely the better alternative. "I hate that we're locked in WhatsApp, but I am actively fighting for keeping us locked in".
If everyone starts using signal I'll go along. But they won't so they're isn't any point. I'll still need WhatsApp so they'll keep tracking me. Signal also has poorer group chats (no subtopics for example) which I use a lot.
And if they get big quickly they'll run out of funds and will have to make similar decisions. They're not going to continue being funded by big tech bros like Brian Acton's 50M$ if their costs balloon. For me to actively promote it and use it without a big userbase, it will have to be so open that I can run my own server, like email. I do run matrix for that reason. I like ownership of my services and I'd rather contribute to the network than donating.
Ps: if he really wanted to help accessible safe communications he shouldn't have sold WhatsApp.
I see more in solutions to thwart their tracking. Such as using a matrix bridge, which I do. I do the same with search, I use a meta-search engine to remove tracking and ads. I can also customise it to my wishes that way.
Well moving from WhatsApp to Signal was one move in the last 10 years. I wouldn't call that "constantly moving". We'd be lucky if there was an alternative worth moving every year, but that's by far not the case.
> I'll still need WhatsApp so they'll keep tracking me.
... you say you're in cybersec, so I would expect you to do better than that. What does WhatsApp track? Metadata. Who writes to whom, when. If you move half of your conversations away from WhatsApp, they lost the metadata from half those conversations. So they effectively track you less. It's not "all or nothing".
> They're not going to continue being funded by big tech bros like Brian Acton's 50M$
Are you sure they've been running on 50M in the last 10 years? They take donations, I would expect this helps quite a bit. 50M doesn't really sound like a lot of money when you have 70 millions active users.
> I do run matrix for that reason.
Matrix is inferior to Signal in many ways, though. And it's not like Matrix is super diverse: most people use Element, right? Federation sounds good, but power laws etc.
> Ps: if he really wanted to help accessible safe communications he shouldn't have sold WhatsApp.
Can you imagine anyone in the world who would not sell WhatsApp for 19 Billions? :-)
> Such as using a matrix bridge
How is that reducing the metadata?
No but the last year I've been asked to go to:
- Telegram for a group chat
- Discord for a support community
- Snapchat by someone who wanted to share pics with me
- Instagram chat by a tattoo artist
- RCS / Google Messages by a friend in America who wants to use iMessage with me (I don't use Apple)
- Signal by a family member
- One person keeps chatting to me on LinkedIn and is annoyed I only reply once a month or so when I happen to log in to it (I have all notifications off and don't use the app of course)
All by different people. I keep saying no more more keep cropping up. Signal isn't the only one. I'm honestly very tired of all that crap. If I promote something new it should not be the same thing, slightly less flawed. It should be a real way forward.
I bridge to matrix now and if a network is not supported there then I won't use it. But I don't actually care about those chat networks. The bridges are just a way to forget they exist. Also, I'm not rolling out a bridge just for one person who wants to talk to me on a new network.
> ... you say you're in cybersec, so I would expect you to do better than that. What does WhatsApp track? Metadata. Who writes to whom, when. If you move half of your conversations away from WhatsApp, they lost the metadata from half those conversations. So they effectively track you less. It's not "all or nothing".
I am but privacy and security issues are very different things. The metadata is not really something I care about. My phone provider knows who I call and what I say, my mail provider knows who I email and what I say. Whatsapp was an improvement over those. It's not ideal but metadata is not a dealbreaker for me. And the thing is, I can't do without Whatsapp. I don't like it, but I'm stuck with it. I do shield it from my phone by using matrix so there is little the app itself can collect.
By the way at work the situation is much worse. My employer uses Microsoft 365 where all our data is on Microsoft servers (sharepoint et al) and they can access literally everything. Every document, every email, every chat, even the ones I deleted. It's all there and not end to end encrypted so Microsoft can see it too. Of course they sign legalese that they won't look at it but we all know how much that means post-Snowden. My employer is a company that's supposedly cybersecurity-aware. Clearly not enough. I don't have input in such strategic decisions. Still, a whole team of cybersec specialists is OK with this situation. I'm not, which is one of the reasons I don't like my job :) We spend time on stupid little things while freely giving up our entire data.
> Matrix is inferior to Signal in many ways, though.
I don't agree, it is superior for me. I can use whatever client I want, I can use it on any PC or web or mobile device, 20 of them if I want, I can set up my own home server, I can run my own integrations and bots (like a transcription bot running on a local whisper instance, nothing leaked to the cloud). I don't need a phone number to sign up so I can make different accounts for different purposes, just like email addresses on my domain. It is this flexibility I need. I don't want my chats to be locked up in someone else's server. My chats are my data and I should be able to do with it what I want.
Signal doesn't let me sign up without a phone number. It doesn't even have a web version, I have to install their desktop client (which isn't available on BSD). Also Signal misses so much functionality especially for group chats and integrations/bots.
Anyway, we're not going to agree here. I'm not going to help promote Signal and I don't think it's a train worth riding. That's my opinion. It's not the direction I want to move into, I'm truly sick of these walled gardens.
> Are you sure they've been running on 50M in the last 10 years? They take donations, I would expect this helps quite a bit. 50M doesn't really sound like a lot of money when you have 70 millions active users.
No but it is by far the biggest donation they've had. Most people are not going to pay for it, and if they grow the "normies" will rapidly outgrow the evangelists who would be inclined to donate. They'll end up having to get capital, which will come with strings attached, and the enshittification will start.
The thing is that with something federated that can't really happen. If the main matrix instances enshittify, I'll just run my own (and in my case this is exactly what I do anyway). Or someone else might start one. Having an open network is the only way I see out of the enshittification spiral.
To be clear, I'm not installing those things either. Everybody has WhatsApp, so that's my fallback, it's a common denominator. Signal is superior, so that's my preference. For personal conversations, I don't use anything else.
Then for work, I have to use the tools we get (be it Slack or Discord or Teams). And when a community is on Slack or Discord or IRC or discourse or whatever they use, well I have to go there to talk to them.
> My employer uses Microsoft 365 where all our data is on Microsoft servers
Yes I agree, that's a problem. Slack, Discord, same thing everywhere. Companies should self-host e.g. a matrix server, or at least use a provider from their own country. But I believe that self-hosted Matrix would be better than Slack for companies.
> I don't agree, [Matrix] is superior for me.
Out of curiosity, why not Telegram then, if you don't care about privacy and encryption?
> if they grow the "normies" will rapidly outgrow the evangelists who would be inclined to donate
They currently have 70M active users. Those are not evangelists.
> If the main matrix instances enshittify, I'll just run my own
Which is more complicated for approximately everybody than "if Signal enshittify, I'll move back to WhatsApp or to the next alternative to Signal".
Matrix brings its lot of issues. For instance, startups obviously wouldn't care, but corporations would never accept "any Matrix client" to connect. So they would somehow want to make sure that their employees use approved clients. I don't think this is currently a thing in Matrix. But even if it was, it means that corporations wouldn't benefit from "I can use any client I want", and chances are that they would self-host and not federate. Better than giving their data to third-parties, but still not the dream of federation or freedom.
For personal use? Normies use the main Matrix server, it's not really federated. And Matrix servers collect a lot of metadata. Wasn't there also security issues, where a Matrix server could inject ghost users into rooms?
All that to say, Matrix does not solve the problems that Signal solves. Matrix solves other problems (well, mostly "I want to self-host a chat and I want something cooler than IRC"), but then it makes sense that Matrix is not a replacement for Signal and Signal is not a replacement for those Matrix use-cases.
Bridging is a weird hack. I have only been confronted to Matrix bridges to IRC channels, and it was making everything worse for IRC users (essentially forcing the IRC users to either move to Matrix or ban the bridges).
> Yes I agree, that's a problem. Slack, Discord, same thing everywhere. Companies should self-host e.g. a matrix server, or at least use a provider from their own country. But I believe that self-hosted Matrix would be better than Slack for companies.
Yes or at least use something that's verifiably E2EE. It's totally possible to use someone else's cloud without giving them any way to read the information stored on it. It's just not really offered by the big names. I think part of the reason is that they love running analysis. Especially Microsoft loves "data-driven" everything.
> For personal use? Normies use the main Matrix server, it's not really federated. And Matrix servers collect a lot of metadata. Wasn't there also security issues, where a Matrix server could inject ghost users into rooms?
Yes but those can be resolved. It's still being developed. And once it gets big there will be more servers, I'm sure. Popular sites and services can host their own and direct their existing users to it.
> Bridging is a weird hack. I have only been confronted to Matrix bridges to IRC channels, and it was making everything worse for IRC users (essentially forcing the IRC users to either move to Matrix or ban the bridges).
Well that's for IRC channels, that bridge multiple users on both sides, yes. But this is for 2 reasons: IRC is more limited than matrix so some stuff has to be crammed in a text field somehow, and many IRC servers don't allow full bridging where the bridge can pretend to be multiple users. Libera is an example, they had some personal conflicts with the matrix team and turned it off. Since then it's difficult because the bot puts the username of the matrix user in the body of each message instead of making it appear to come from the username.
If you bridge 1:1 chats or things like whatsapp groups with one user on the matrix side (which is the case for personal bridges), there is no issue. The whatsapp users don't see anything different. Your messages just show up under your regular name. On the matrix side everyone also shows up as a matrix user, the bridge creates a user for everyone in the group chat (called a 'puppet'). It's quite good. The only thing is that if I run a transcribe bot, its output gets bridged back to the other party I'm talking to, so I redirect those to a separate chat. It would be nice if there was a "don't bridge" flag for messages. Whatsapp has transcribe functionality now, but it only works on the phone, not web. And the quality is awful. Whisper-large which I run a server for, blows it out of the water.
The biggest issue with the whatsapp bridge is that it doesn't do voice or video calls. The telegram bridge works even better because it uses the regular telegram protocol (whatsapp doesn't support third-party clients or bots so it uses a hack through whatsapp web).